EDWARD IT MUST HAVE BEEN HARD TO HAVE SCISSORS FOR HANDS BECAUSE SOMETIMES IT'S HARD TO HAVE HANDS FOR HANDS

James Pabarue

1.
Like when there's wine seeping into the carpet and you need them
to be ShamWows. Or staplers or anything
with fewer nerves because they're getting slammed in doors and in doors.

2.
It would be a mistake to take you to a movie
if we just want to stay friends. Something about the end
credits—I'll find out who held the boom
and whether or not animals
were injured during filming

and by then you'll have become
irresistible. They were.

3.
Or maces because I don't know it's medieval times.
Or laminated copies of the Declaration of Independence.

4.
Prison isn't a funny place to think about so I do that
when I start to smile too much. Like: in the dark

I remember your back cracking like a wrist prison prison prison.

5.
Or two geodes or walkie talkies or regenerative
ham sandwiches.

Yeah, ham sandwiches. Prison prison prison.

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I'm repeatedly drawn to the concept of physical transfiguration and how we might react/cope when some force(s) conspires to change us irreversibly. Or what happens when we conspire to change ourselves. When are we/aren't we complicit? And, of course, there will always be sandwiches and sadness and ShamWows. This poem was a rarity in that the title acted as its main generative force.